Special Assault Team

The Special Assault Team (SAT) is Japan's elite special forces unit, founded on 28 September 1977 as the Special Armed Police in the aftermath of the Japanese Red Army's hijacking of Japanese Airlines Flight 472 in Dhaka, Bangladesh. On 26 January 1979, the SAP was deployed for the first time when it foiled Akiyoshi Umekawa's robbery of the Mitsubishi Bank, during which Umekawa had killed 4 people and taken 40 hostages. In 1996, the modern Special Assault Team was created in response to the hijacking of All Nippon Airways Flight 857 by a lone hijacker, and the SAT took part in the storming of a hijacked bus in 1997. In May 2007, the SAT lost its first officer, Kazuho Hayashi, when Hayashi was killed during an anti-Yakuza operation. By 2016, the SAT had around 300 personnel.